NEWS ABOUT THE CHURCH & THE VATICAN

This is for news items about the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, as well as relations with other religions, and major developments within the other Christian confessions...

This is an interesting bit from Zenit today:
http://www.zenit.org/english/
Coexistence With Islam Is Possible, Says Journalist
Luigi Accattoli's Book Talks About Muslims in Italy

Don't know why but your link is not working again. The one below works, I hope.

www.zenit.org/english/

Benefan - you're right; it seems one should not put in the http...I am intrigued by the book on the "good" Muslims in Italy.

I erroneously posted this under "News about Benedict" earlier today. Sorry!
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It won't be released officially till November 29 but Catholic World News earlier this week published the text of the much-speculated Vatican document setting guidelines for the admission of homosexuals into the priesthood. By all accounts, Pope Benedict XVI approved the document last August 31, but the question has been under study since the previous Papacy.
www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=40891

As expected, it has already drawn much fire and ire from liberal circles, although it seems to strike a very reasonable balance between respect for and understanding of homosxual reality, and a concern for the Church's teachings on homosexuality and the problems likely to confront both the Church (as well as the priest concerned)if a homosexual priest has not fully committed himself to celibacy.

On the other hand, the Bishops Conferences in Germany and Switzerland have just issued statements welcoming and supporting the "Instructions".

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/11/2005 21.47]

I confess I never heard of 93-year-old Abbe Pierre - a French icon, it appears - until he made headlines (not for the first time, obviously) earlier this month that has sent ripples through the Catholic Church. Following is a translation of an article that tells us what the flap is all about. It is followed by Panorama's interview with 91-year-old Cardinal Ersilio Tonini of Ravenna(the cardinal who was photographed last July receiving all those heartwarming caresses from the Pope) who comments on Abbe Pierre's confessions and on the question of pristly celibacy in general.

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"My God, why?"
By Alberto Toscano

“I am 93 years old, and my faith keeps making new demands!” , so says Abbe Pierre, a living symbol of French Catholicism, in an autobiographical book entitled “My God- why?”, which came out in Paris recently and which is destined to provoke a lot of discussion.

Abbe Pierre has been very well-known in France for over half a century, starting from that severe winter of 1954 when he fought on the side of homeless people and defied authority in the name of generosity.

This time, he has chosen to lay his prestige on the line to promote public discussion of problems that may affect the future of the Catholic Church. Including the delicate matter of priestly chastity.

Here we have one of the most respected religious figures in the world admitting to having had sexual relations as a priest. The 93-year-old priest has chosen to review his life in public with the evident intention of pushing the Church to discuss the issues which are dear to him.

The book is actually a series of reflections – or perhaps better, meditations – by him that have been rewritten into journalistic style by Frederic Lenoir, an expert on religious issues and religion editor for Le Monde magazine.

At the same time, France’s Channel 2, the country’s main TV outlet, is rushing to finish a scheduled Christmas telecast about the Abbe Pierre, based on a fiction by Claude Pinoteau.

The old priest says it is his right and obligation to throw stones into the pond of Catholic doctrine. And since he has never been known to act subtly, he actually throws in quite a boulder!

Here is what he says: “ Personally, I had chosen very early to dedicate my life to God and to my neighbor, for which purpose I took a vow of chastity. In a certain sense, my life (since then) has been like that of a prisoner. When you know that you cannot allow yourself to have something which you really want, then you must learn to do without. I knew that my life as a priest, totally dedicated to helping the poor, was irreconcilable with having a love life. I had to keep desire from taking root in me. I would define my status as being one of consensual slavery. But this does not diminish in any way the force of desire, to which I have yielded temporarily on a number of occasions. I never had regular relations because I wanted to prevent sexual desire from taking root in me, as that would have pushed me to a lasting relationship with a woman, which would have been contrary to the life choice I had made.”

He adds: “I have therefore known the experience of sexual desire and its rare satisfaction, which beame transformed in turn into a source of dissatisfaction because I did not feel authentic in my behavior.”

And here is the conclusion he draws on the problem of priestly chastity: “I realized that sexual desire, in order to be fully satisfied, must be expressed in a relationship of love that is based on trust. Such a relationship was not possible for me. So I could only make women unhappy, as I was a prisoner of the contradiction between two life choices that are irreconcilable.”

And now, what to do? “I know priests who live in concubinage with women they have loved for years and who accept their situation and continue to be good priests. So the question of married priests and the ordination of married men is crucial for the Church. I am convinced that the Church needs both – married priests as well as priests who have chosen to consecrate themselves totally to prayer and to helping their neighbor. Jesus chose married apostles like Peter, and bachelors, who doubtless remained so, like John.”

In effect, even at age 93, Abbe Pierre is more combative than ever.
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Cardinal Tonini's response


Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, archbishop emeritus of Ravenna, is quite upset. He has just read the intimate revelations of the Abbe Pierre, who has been called the Saint Francis of our day, a Capuchin friar who left everything to be on the side of the “least among men.” At 93 years, he has now confessed to having sinned several times by having occasional sexual encounters, told in an interview-book with Frederic Lenoir.

For the 91-year-old Cardinal Tonini, it is the collapse of a myth. “I felt bad reading his words. The Abbe Pierre was one of the better symbols of France – he bore witness to a commitment that did not stop with making social demands but expressed itself in concrete acts of solidarity and was able to mobilize thousands of persons to his cause all over the world. Now this symbol has crumbled to dust, and for many of us, it is a day of great sorrow.”

Abbe Pierre’s biography has its share of dramatic episodes. Born Henri-Antoine Groues into a well-to-do family, he donated his inheritance to the poor when he was 19 years old to enter a Capuchin monastery in Lyon. He came out years later and became a diocesan priest.

He aided the victims of Nazism, fought with the partisans, became elected deputy to Parliament. In protest [the article does not say to what], he resigned from Parliament and with an ex-convict, he founded the Emmaus Movement to set up communities for poor people, ex-drug addicts and ex-prostitutes who wished to have a new life. The movement is now found in 50 countries.

Eminence, what did Abbe Pierre mean to your generation?
He was a model of altruism and generosity not only for my generation for so many people, believers and non-believers alike. For instance, I think of Annamaria Tonelli who, as an adolescent saw the Abbe Pierre hen he visited Forli. She started to collect contributions and donations for Africa, until she finally decided to leave evrything her and go to Somalia. What would she say if she read these revelations now?

Maybe Abbe Pierre only needed to unburden his conscience…
But why do it publicly, especially in a book, I ask. It would have been enough to say it to his confessor. I feel like we are back in the 70s when there were priests who announced to their flock during Mass: “Tomorrow I am getting married.” This does not do the Church good in any way.

Did you ever desire a woman?
I entered the seminary when I was 11 years old. When I was 20, I dreamed of having a family with two or three children. But soon I understood that I would realize myself even better with a family far more vast and numerous, like the Church.

You have not answered me.
I sought to protect myself. I never read a book that would have made me blush. I avoided giving way to curiosity. I devoted myself fully to studying philosophy, history, foreign languages. I prayed very faithfully. And I counsel young priests to do the same in order to safeguard their chastity.

Which was more difficult for you – the lack of a woman or failure to become a father?
Celibacy is not a price you pay to become a priest. On the contrary, it is the extraordinary opportunity to have an even wider paternity. I have had so many children and continue to have more, even at my age the young priests when I taught in the seminary; the university students when I was an assistant Professor with the Italian federation of Catholic universities; the faithful here in my diocese of Ravenna; and all those who come to me daily to seek a word of comfort, or sometimes,simply to be with someone who is willing to listen.

Would it resolve the problem of vocations in the Church if it did away with priestly chastity, as Abbe-Pierre proposes?I don’t think so. The crisis in vocations also affects the Protestant churches and the oriental churches where they allow married priests. We have a priest shortage because it is difficult for young people to make a definitive choice for the priesthood.

Abbe Pierre also recommends female priests and homosexual marriage.
I ask myself what entitles him to play the teacher in these matters and to treat issues that are outside his competence. Let us leave the discussion of such delicate issues to the theologians and the experts.

After all this, what would you advise Abbe Pierre?
I would advise him to reread Socrates’s prayer: “Dear Pan, and all of you who are the gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside, and that everything I have outside be in accord with what I am inside."

When I was a teenager I read a book about "saints" of our days - people who sacrificed their lives for Christ and people. Abbe Pierre was one of them.
After hearing about his confessions I felt really upset. Whom are we to believe? Doesn't the Bible say something against shattering the faith of the others?

Yvonne, I understand how you feel. That's why I thought Cardinal Tonini was right when he said that the Abbe should simply have left these revelations at the confessional, and not make them public they way he did. It does not help anyone, and it actually shakes one's faith in people who are supposed to be Christ's ministers.

If you read Italian, check out the interesting discussion that has been going on about the subject in the Papa Ratzinger Forum thread of the main forum, under the topic Omosessualita.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE AND RELIGION

For Star Trek fans and science buffs, here is a very interesting article about one of the papal astronomers at Castel Gandolfo who is writing a book about how the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would affect or not affect our view of the faith. Very thought-provoking, controversial, and humorous at times.

www.sundayherald.com/53020

May I ask if you would mind if I link to articles that appear here, over at the RFC? I haven't written this as a pm as I think that others who have dual citizenship may be wondering the same.

Specifically, I would like to refer to Teresa's translation of the Abbe Pierre piece with Tonini's response.

:

Wulfruna - Of course, feel free to do so with any translation that I post here. In fact, all these months, Ratzigirl has allowed us to post anything from her forum into the RFC, and I did a lot of that...I'm just not going to "double-post" my own
posts now, because someone complained on the RFC that they did not see the point in duplicating whatever has appeared in the Italian forum.

My point was that many anglophones usually don't want to be bothered to have to navigate a forum conducted in a foreign language, and I did not want people like them to miss out on the goodies from Ratzigirl's forum, or from the French and German sections of the RFC, for that matter, which understandably, most anglophones who read neither French nor German would not bother to check out.

BRAVO TONINI

Why in the world Abbe Pierre decided he had to air his true confessions to the world at large at the age of 93 is beyond me. It's bad enough that he has apparently broken his vows several times but why inform the world about it and in a way that seems he is trying to justify his behavior. Is he Catholic or not? Is he a priest or not? If yes on these questions, then he knows he is not supposed to behave in that fashion. No wonder so many average Catholics are confused about their faith when pastors worldwide don't seem to have a clue how they are supposed to live or don't have the faith and self-discipline to do it. Little Cardinal Tonini is my hero for the day. Also, I hope I am that lucid in my 90s.

Yvonne, one consolation. Papa has said many times that the church is for sinners, that Christ came here for them. Papa says we should not be discouraged by people who fall but take hope in Christ's example and his mercy; and poor Papa certainly knows about the failures of the clergy from his many years at the CDF. He still remains hopeful and full of choy so we need to try too despite our disappointments in people.

I think the writer suggested it was his way of trumpeting his
pet reforms for the Church, starting with married priests, for instance.

The old man fell through the liberal trapdoor most "social-activist" priests get caught into. From thoroughly laudable causes to help the "least of My brethren", they forget that their mission as priests is primarily to strengthen and propagate the faith, not to redress material ills on earth.

From there, it's a small step to advocating other liberal issues that are clearly against the Magisterium of 2000 years such as married priests, homosexual unions and the like. And in today's media-oriented world, it's easy to make waves by being an iconoclast, as the media love nothing better than to publicize anyone who "takes on" the Establishment, especially if the target is the Catholic Church!

The liberal-activist priests become so convinced they alone are right that the overweening force of their self-conviction does not make them see that 1)they are, in fact, advocating elements from other religions; and 2)if someone really finds the Church teaching and practices on some issues intolerable and abhorrent, it is dishonest, to say the least, to remain Catholic, much less a Catholic priest, and be in open defiance of, or in pitched battle against, the Church (and yes, of its "Establishment", because every institution must obviously be run by its Establishment, not by renegades).

Why will they not leave this backward, papist, hierarchical, dominant, unenlightened, opressive, ignorant church. There are so many liberal, enlightened, modern..(and so on) churches to be joined. Why stay and complain?
I am very bakward indeed but I like it.

Yvonne- Exactly! If they find all sorts of things wrong with it, they should just leave!

Anyway, here's a good antidote for the renegades, an Advent message full of hope from a blogger on the excellent French site chretiente.info, which Sylvie indicated two days ago.

We owe Beatrice for calling attention to this article. In my translation, I have omitted most of the writer's brief introduction which consists of his reflections on Advent and a brief news item about his local church...
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Advent - by D. Florent, 11/25/05

..Advent is a period of preparation for renewal...In France, as in the whole Christian world, Advent this year has a genuine taste of renewal.

Think: It’s the first Advent under our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI!. It will be his first Christmas (as Pope)! Yet what achievements already in just a few months! What a blessing our Pope is!

Why don’t we do a little tour of the “new days” that await us, and where we see the glimmerings of dawn, thanks to our Pope?

China – One perceives a number of rapprochements between the “two Churches”…since Benedict XVI has chosen to welcome the bishops of one as bishops of the other as well…

Vietnam – It is said that establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See is now just a matter of time!

Spain – Where, faced with a government that is increasingly taking anti-Christian measures, the people are expressing their sorrow, with as many as two million taking to the streets to protest…

Italy – Where the minister of health has just reminded his fellow citizens that it is necessary to respect human life! Maybe we should send our (French) ministers to train in Italy!

Poland – Which has just presented testimony in the very corridors of power of the “new Europe” about the tragedy of abortions performed routinely as institutional murders…

And France, yes in France itself – some initial bishops’ nominations that appear hopeful….A previous generation appears to have lost “weight” in the face of the new bishops who have the following in common: they have the Faith, they love the Pope, and they believe in the sacraments! Is that not modern?

Estonia- Where, for the first time in almost a century, the Bishop’s See in Tallinn, the capital, is occupied – and by a French bishop! He comes from the Opus Dei which has borne much magnificent fruit, but he learned the Estonian language and now conducts his flock towards the Lord.

In the whole Orthodox world- The dialogue with the Catholic Church is becoming richer and more sustained than ever before. Deo gratias!

And even on the part of the Pius X Fraternity, many recent signs indicate that the movement is slowly drifting back towards the Roman side.

May I be allowed a wish?
May I hope that each of you who reads these lines choose one of the causes mentioned above and make it your cause in your prayers?

May I hope that each of you can write to say, “I, So-and-So, choose this particular intention and I will pray for it during this Advent season”?

Please do so. Let us join our prayers to that of the Holy Father and his concrete actions.

Amen!

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May I hope that each of you can write to say, “I, So-and-So, choose this particular intention and I will pray for it during this Advent season”?

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I NanMn, choose China and I will pray for it during this Advent season.

Great idea Teresa

Remember Sandro Magister’s article on 11/18/05 about what takes place when Benedict XVI meets with his bishops at the Vatican? Some are praised, some are rebuked, some are taken by surprise.

He praised the Italian bishops for “the thorough insight and the united effort with which you assist your communities and the entire Italian nation in acting always for the true good of persons and society.” He was obviously commending them for their campaign in defense of the inviolability of the human being from the first moment of life, helping defeat a referendum issue that would have liberalized Italy’s laws regarding human embryos.

But he was blunt with the Austrian bishops whom he urged to “change course,” pointing to the “sorrowful” fact that “the process of secularization which is now increasingly significant for Europe did not even pause at the doors of Catholic Austria.”

He reminded them: “As you well know, the confession of the faith is one of the bishop’s primary duties...Prudence must not prevent us from presenting the Word of God in all its clarity, including those things that are heard less willingly or that consistently provoke reactions of protest and derision… Don’t deceive yourselves! Catholic teaching offered in an incomplete manner is a contradiction of itself and cannot be fruitful in the long term."

The Pope sprung his surprise on the Latin American bishops. As Magister recounts it:

”Halfway through the synod on the Eucharist, during a break in the work, the pope met with cardinals Francisco Javier Errázuriz, archbishop of Santiago, Chile and president of the Latin American bishops’ conference (CELAM); Pedro Rubiano, archbishop of Bogotá; Cláudio Hummes, archbishop of San Paolo, Brazil; and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires.

”The topic of their conversation was the upcoming general conference of CELAM, the fifth of these after the previous ones held in Rio de Janeiro in 1995, in Medellin in 1968, in Puebla in 1979, and in Santo Domingo in 1992.

”The conference was already set for 2007, but the place and the exact date remained to be determined. The four bishops were prepared to hold it in Rome, in order to ensure the pope’s participation in the work.

”But Benedict XVI said to them all of a sudden: ‘It will be held in Brazil,’ and immediately asked what the country’s most venerated Marian shrine is. ‘The Aparecida,’ they replied. And the pope:
‘In Brazil, at the Aparecida, in May. I’ll be there.’

”The four cardinals were taken completely by surprise. And so were the leaders of the Roman curia – the pope hadn’t discussed the matter with any of them. What induced Benedict XVI to choose Brazil may have been what Cardinal Hummes said at the synod a few days earlier:
’The number of Brazilians who declare themselves Catholics has diminished rapidly, on an average of 1% a year. In 1991 Catholic Brazilians were nearly 83%, today and according to new studies, they are barely 67%. We wonder with anxiety: how long will Brazil remain a Catholic country? In conformity with this situation, it has been found that in Brazil there are two Protestant pastors for each Catholic priest, and the majority from the Pentecostal Churches. Many indications show that the same is true for almost all of Latin America and here too we wonder: how long will Latin America remain a Catholic continent?’

”But the choice of the Aparecida also left the four cardinals speechless. That is indeed the most frequently visited shrine in Brazil, but it is located in an isolated part of the state of San Paolo, and it lacks the structures capable of hosting a large-scale continental congress.

”But none of the four cardinals dared to object. The pope had decided, and his reasons were all too clear. He has at heart a vigorous renewal of the Catholic faith on the Latin American continent, and symbols are very valuable in this regard.

”There’s time to build a convention center on the plain of the Aparecida, until May of 2007.

There may well be another reason for the Pope’s concern over Brazil. The Corriere della Sera, in an article published 11/21/05, says:

The Vatican is investigating 1,700 Brazillian priests – 10% of the total – who have been involved so far in sexual misconduct, including violation of children and women.

The Brazilian weekly magazine Istoe reported that in September, the Pope sent a commission to Brazil to investigate widespread reports of sexual misconduct by priests, mostly committed on poor boys. The commission reportedly found that-
·some 50% of Brazilian priests do not keep their vows of chastity; and
·in the last 3 years, more than 200 priests have been sent to psychiatric clinics run by the Church to be “re-educated.”

The Brazilian media has been reporting cases like the following:

A 10-yar-old boy told his grandmother what he had been afraid to tell his mother for fear of being slapped. Father Edson Alves dos Santos, a 64-year-old priest, had raped him and warned him to keep silent about it, or else he would be arrested. It started when he presented himself on Easter Sunday last year to be an altar boy. There followed 5 months of being violated.

Last week, Father Felix Barbosa Carriero was arrested during an orgy of sex and drugs with four adolescents he had recruited through the Internet.

Father Tarcisio Tadeu Spricigo, recently imprisoned after being found guilty of raping a 5-year-old boy, was convicted by his own written testimony. He kept a diary which amounts to a manual on pedophilia, in which he noted his feelings, as well the rules he set himself in order not to be caught.
One of them: Never do it with rich kids.

He wrote: “I prepare myself for the hunt, and I look around serene in the thought that I can have any boy I want without ever lacking a supply, because poor children are the safest in the world..I will never lack for kids whom I can rely on, who are sensual, and who will keep everything in total secrecy – kids who feel the lack of a father and who live only with their mother. They are everywhere….Therefore, I am sure and I have no apprehensions. I am a seductor, and after I have applied my rules correctly, the boy falls straight into my hands, and we will be happy forever.”

The priest, who was re-assigned to another post after the first complaint was filed against him, went on to rape two other boys before he was finally taken into custody.

Father Alfieri Edoardo Bompani, 45 years old, brought street urchins to a country house belonging to his order, on the pretext that he was rescuing them from drug addiction. But he videotaped his assaults on victims who were aged 6 to 10! The police also found a notebook of erotic stories which the priest had written to recount his personal experience. The stories were reportedly couched in such crude language that the magazine could not find anything it could suitably quote.

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This why Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the meditations and prayers he wrote for the Way of the Cross earlier this year, exclaimed in agony:

“How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!”

It is worth re-reading the Meditation and Prayer that he wrote on the 9th Station of the Cross:

MEDITATION
What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).
PRAYER
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.

P.S. Brazil is not included among the "national" causes listed in an article above to pray for this Advent, but I am choosing Spain and Brazil to pray for - Spain, because I deplore what is becoming of what was once perhaps the most Catholic nation on earth, and Brazil because it is just too huge a population to for Catholicism to lose!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/11/2005 3.46]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/11/2005 3.49]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/11/2005 1.11]

Bloomberg.com did a pretty comprehensive round-up today.
The story goes further than we reported here earlier, in that it quotes the Abbe berating the Vatican for, among other things, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, its "macho mentality," and Rome's authority over local churches. He also compares U.S. actions in the Middle East to the worst of the Crusades.

The link is www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aryr3GE390hY&refer=europe

Sorry, I can't seem to get it to link by clicking on the URL. But if you lift the whole www....address and paste it on to the Google search box, you will get the article.

And he was my hero!!!!!!!!!!
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I will pray for Estonia and the dialog with the Orthodox church.
Actually I ave already done it today morning after the mass at 6.30 am, so called here "roraty" from Latin Advent song "Rorate coeli de super...". Beautiful early morning mass - traditionally children and adults bring little lights to the church and the mass starts in complete darkness with only little candles flickering. Uplifting.

As it is a fairly short item, I am posting the whole item here from Vatican Information Services about the "Instruction..." about gays in seminaries and the priesthood.

ADMISSION TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND HOMOSEXUALITY

VATICAN CITY, NOV 29, 2005 (VIS) - Made public today was the document: "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders." The document is dated November 4, memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, patron of seminaries, and bears the signatures of Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski and of Archbishop Michael J. Miller C.S.B., respectively prefect and secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education. On August 31, 2005, Benedict XVI approved the Instruction and ordered its publication.

Given below are some extracts from the document, which has been published in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

INTRODUCTION

"In continuity with the teaching of Vatican Council II and, in particular, with the Decree 'Optatam Totius' on priestly formation, the Congregation for Catholic Education has published various documents with the aim or promoting a suitable, integral formation of future priests, by offering guidelines and precise norms regarding its diverse aspects. In the meantime, the 1990 Synod of Bishops also reflected on the formation of priests in the circumstances of the present day. ... Following this Synod, John Paul II published the Post- Synodal Apostolic Exhortation 'Pastores Dabo Vobis'."

"The present Instruction does not intend to dwell on all questions in the area of affectivity and sexuality that require an attentive discernment during the entire period of formation. Rather, it contains norms concerning a specific question, made more urgent by the current situation, and that is: whether to admit to the seminary and to holy orders candidates who have deep- seated homosexual tendencies."

AFFECTIVE MATURITY AND SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD

"According to the constant Tradition of the Church, only a baptized person of the male sex validly receives sacred ordination. By means of the Sacrament of Orders, ... the priest, in fact, sacramentally represents Christ, the head, shepherd and spouse of the Church. Because of this configuration to Christ, the entire life of the sacred minister must be animated by the gift of his whole person to the Church and by an authentic pastoral charity.

"The candidate to the ordained ministry, therefore, must reach affective maturity. Such maturity will allow him to relate correctly to both men and women, developing in him a true sense of spiritual fatherhood towards the Church community that will be entrusted to him."

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE ORDAINED MINISTRY

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies. Regarding acts, it teaches that Sacred Scripture presents them as grave sins. The Tradition has constantly considered them as intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law. Consequently, under no circumstances can they be approved.

"Deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are found in a number of men and women, are also objectively disordered and, for those same people, often constitute a trial. Such persons must be accepted with respect and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided."

"In the light of such teaching, this dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called 'gay culture'."

"One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.

"Different, however, would be the case in which one were dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem - for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded. Nevertheless, such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate."

DISCERNMENT OF THE CHURCH CONCERNING THE SUITABILITY OF CANDIDATES

"The desire alone to become a priest is not sufficient, and there does not exist a right to receive sacred ordination. It belongs to the Church - in her responsibility to define the necessary requirements for receiving the Sacraments instituted by Christ - to discern the suitability of him who desires to enter the seminary, to accompany him during his years of formation, and to call him to holy orders if he is judged to possess the necessary qualities.

"The formation of the future priest must distinctly articulate, in an essentially complementary manner, the four dimensions of formation: human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral. In this context, it is necessary to highlight the particular importance of human formation, as the necessary foundation of all formation."

"Bearing in mind the opinion of those to whom he has entrusted the responsibility of formation, the bishop or major superior, before admitting the candidate to ordination, must arrive at a morally certain judgement on his qualities. In the case of a serious doubt in this regard, he must not admit him to ordination.

"The discernment of a vocation and the maturity of the candidate is also a serious duty of the rector and of the other persons entrusted with the work of formation in the seminary. Before every ordination, the rector must express his own judgment on whether the qualities required by the Church are present in the candidate."

The spiritual director, though bound to secrecy, "represents the Church in the internal forum. In his discussions with the candidate, the spiritual director must especially point out the demands of the Church concerning priestly chastity and the affective maturity that is characteristic of the priest, as well as help him to discern whether he has the necessary qualities. The spiritual director has the obligation to evaluate all the qualities of the candidate's personality and to make sure that he does not present disturbances of a sexual nature, which are incompatible with the priesthood. If a candidate practices homosexuality or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director, as well as his confessor, have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination.

"It goes without saying that the candidate himself has the primary responsibility for his own formation. ... It would be gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality in order to proceed, despite everything, towards ordination. Such a deceitful attitude does not correspond to the spirit of truth, loyalty and openness that must characterize the personality of him who believes he is called to serve Christ and His Church in the ministerial priesthood."

CONCLUSION

"This Congregation reaffirms the need for bishops, major superiors, and all relevant authorities to carry out an attentive discernment concerning the suitability of candidates for holy orders, from the time of admission to the seminary until ordination. This discernment must be done in light of a conception of the ministerial priesthood that is in accordance with the teaching of the Church.

"Let bishops, episcopal conferences and major superiors look to see that the constant norms of this Instruction be faithfully observed for the good of the candidates themselves, and to guarantee that the Church always has suitable priests who are true shepherds according to the heart of Christ."
CIC/PRIESTHOOD HOMOSEXUALITY/... VIS 051129 (1180)
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Right now, I have not found a link to the full text in English.

SORRY, YVONNE

It's too bad the Abbe didn't think about all the people who looked up to him before he decided to indulge in pleasures he shouldn't have and then tell the world about them. I am extremely cautious these days about expecting too much of anybody, especially after reading some of the posts on this page. I do volunteer work as a child advocate and the comments from some of the pedophile priests in Brazil about stalking fatherless poor children is disgusting and infuriating. Teresa, let's postpone any more news items about grossly sinful priests till after the holidays. All the recent stories from Austria and Brazil and Ireland and here in the USA are nauseating and very depressing.

LIMBO'S DAYS ARE NUMBERED?

Limbo may be on the way out:

www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17413326%255E1702...

I agree on the holiday moratorium, Benefan. I only thought I had to post the Brazil story at this time because the Church there is so huge, and it helps underscore Papa's concern and why he jumped in headlong to volunteer he will be in Brazil next year ....

Interesting story on limbo! That was always rather a murky matter to me....

"Even if they have never had a gay sexual experience and are fully committed to celibacy, homosexual men are not suitable candidates for the priesthood, said a long article in the Vatican newspaper."

See this story on Catholic News Service.
www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506787.htm

and a related one:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506714.htm

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/11/2005 15.49]

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/
of 11/30/05 reprints a very thoughtful consideration of the "Instruction..." by a Dominican priest on the faculty of the Angelicum in Rome. It's a clear-headed, straightforward and dispassionate presentation of the issues raised by the document and its practical implications that I don't think any objective reader can object to.

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES THAT AREN'T CATHOLIC

Papa talked about this subject a few days ago on a brief outing from the Vatican. It is a hot topic in the US. Our local archbishop has chided the Jesuit university in New Orleans a couple of times for promoting non-Catholic teachings and some of the biggest and most well known Catholic universities in the country seem to have hired professors who are totally outspoken in their non-Catholic beliefs and who promote them to their students.

www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/nov/05112504.html

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican expressed alarm Wednesday over reports of arrests and beatings of Roman Catholic priests in China.

The reports by a Vatican-affiliated news agency cause "pain," and if verified must be condemned, said the statement by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

AsiaNews said this week that Chinese police arrested six priests in Zhengding county, and beat two of them.

The report, citing the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based religious monitoring group, said the arrests were carried out on Nov. 18. The four who were not beaten were taken to a police station in the nearby city of Gaocheng.

Police in Zhengding and Gaocheng denied the report, saying no such arrests were carried out.

Navarro-Valls also mentioned reports of violence against Franciscan sisters in the Western city of Xi'an.

"Violence against some defenseless nuns in Xi'an can only be firmly condemned," the spokesman said.

China broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and demands that Catholics worship only in churches approved by a state-controlled church group that does not recognize the pope's authority. Many Chinese Catholics, however, remain loyal to the Vatican and risk arrest by worshipping in unofficial churches and private homes.

The government's Catholic church claims 4 million believers. The Cardinal Kung Foundation says the unofficial church of Chinese loyal to Rome has 12 million followers.

Pope Benedict XVI has been reaching out to Beijing in a bid to bring all Chinese Catholics under Rome's wing.

Just because someone has the reputation of being an "eminent scientist" - even if he or she has won the Nobel Prize - does not guarantee infallibility, or even simple common sense on topics other than their field of expertise, particularly if their political biases are involved!

Consider the case of one Lord May, said to be Australia's most distinguished expatriate scientist, with this most unscientific and in-defiance-of-common-sense broadside against the Church
(I have underscored some statements, with my comment in italics appended):

www.theage.com.au/news/world/scientist-blames-vatican-dogma-for-aids-pandemic/2005/12/03/1133422148302.html

Scientist blames Vatican dogma for AIDS pandemic
By Annabel Crabb, London
December 4, 2005

AUSTRALIA'S most distinguished expatriate scientist, Lord May of Oxford, has launched an attack on the Catholic Church, blaming Vatican policy for the spread of AIDS in the Third World.

Lord May said that the Vatican's opposition to the use of condoms was an example of "dogma" leading to the deliberate misrepresentation of facts [what facts, exactly, has the Vatican misrepresented?] at great human cost.

The Sydney-born scientist's words came in his final speech delivered as president of Britain's Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organisation, past presidents of which include Isaac Newton and Joseph Banks.

Speaking in London, Lord May described AIDS as a pandemic, with more than 40 million people infected across the world. He quoted a UN report from June that said effective and essential prevention strategies "reach only a fraction of those who need them" [What does the Vatican have to do with this failure? It's the UN, the NGOs and the governments of affected nations who are in charge of distributing condoms as a so-called "effective and essential prevention strategy".]

"The dissemination and adoption of successful prevention strategies is being seriously hindered by arguments over the role that contraception in the form of condoms should play.
[Really? Of the 40 million people said to have AIDS today, how many are Catholic, and of those who are, who among them would actually heed what the Church has to say about extramarital promiscuous sex and contraception?]. This controversy has nothing to do with a scientific assessment of the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the transmission of HIV, but rather derives from religious beliefs against the use of contraception," Lord May said.

"The Vatican promotes abstinence outside marriage, and condemns condom use. This disapproval … is not an effective strategy for preventing dissemination of HIV, not least because unprotected sex with an infected individual is high risk regardless of whether the act is intended for procreation or recreation. [DUH! That's why the Vatican promotes abstinence outside marriage, among other things.) With added support from fundamentalist groups, these arguments have the effect that aid from the US for tackling HIV/AIDS seems usually to be tied to promoting abstinence and condemning condom use." [That's plain and simple misrepresentation of fact. As far as I know, any restrictions "attached" to US aid has nothing to with condom distribution for AIDS "control" but with funding for abortion clinics.]

Lord May is a pioneer in the use of mathematical theory to analyse the spread of disease in populations. He harbours a strong resentment against the Vatican for what he believes is an unforgivable denial of reality. [So there we are - not an unbiased view at all!]

While he has not attacked the Catholic Church publicly before, he stated at a private seminar in the early 1990s, his belief that the Pope had been responsible "for more deaths than Hitler" through Vatican policy on contraception. [Excuse me - a)the comparison with Hitler is patently outrageous; and b)quite apart from getting the right perspective on exactly
how big - how small, actually - a proportion of AIDS sufferers are Catholics or under the influence of the Church at all, what about the estimated 40 million babies aborted every year?]
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It's people like Lord May who give intellectuals a bad name.
Consider, for instance, Noah Chomsky, the man whom readers of Britain's Prospect magazine recently voted overwhelmingly (5000 votes out of 20000, in a poll where you can only vote for one person) to be the "world's top public intellectual," defined by the magazine as someone whose views influence public affairs to a great extent.

Pope Benedict, by the way, was on the list of the names voted on, and he placed #17. I wonder if there are 1.2 billion people altogether - the size of Benedict's flock - who are aware that Noah Chomsky and all the other 99 names on the list even exist.

Anyway, it's just another poll, and the results of the poll obviously reflect the kind of readership that a magazine like Prospect has - i.e., people who think they are intellectuals themselves and for whom being intellectual means to be counter-culture, counter-establishment, because that shows "independence of thought".

Chomsky is an American who established a name as scientist for his work in linguistics in the 50s and 60s, but since then has made an even greater name for himself by "devoting himself to the exposing the high crimes and misdemeanours of the most powerful country in the world" starting with his denunciation of America's involvement in Vietnam.

Now, he has every right to his views and to propagate them, but what are we to conclude about a scientist and moral crusader who, according to one of the articles accompanying his choice as #1 public intellectual, once described the task of the media as "to select the facts, or to invent them in such a way as to render the required conclusions not too transparently absurd - at least for properly disciplined minds."

Except in his case, as with Lord May, he has taken this task upon himself, instead of simply leaving it to the media, in order to promote the views he advocates. Which is not only unscientific but sheer DISHONESTY, whoever does it.

Check out these excellent weekened analytical pieces by Zenit.
www.zenit.org/english/
Christmas Making a Comeback:
Annual Battle Starts With Victories

Redefining Hate:
Restrictions Increase on Criticisms of Homosexuality

Abortion Pill Has Its Backers, Foes and Victims
www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=81056

The first two bring us up-to-date on the continuing battle against the "politically correct" elements in society who are, in effect, seeking to impose a tyranny of the minority on the overwhelming majority of the population, in countries which are supposed to be democracies.

You know the drill- can't say Christmas, you'll offend those who are not Christians (in a country where at least 80 percent of the population is Christian)!

The article "Redefining Hate" cites many international examples
of the absurd extent to which P.C. fanatics are bringing their passions against anyone who says anything against homosexuality.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

And the third article spells out the medical dangers in an abortion pill which some governments are trying to legalize.